Author Topic: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing  (Read 87577 times)

Offline Erica McPhee

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #30 on: April 03, 2014, 09:45:02 PM »
Indeed! He is masterfully skilled.
Warm Regards,
Erica
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Offline thistledesignstudio

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #31 on: April 08, 2014, 11:48:51 AM »
Keeping in mind that I am working on a *very* old version of Photoshop at the moment, I did everything you said Erica to the best I could given that I don't have the exact same version.  When I transfer my threshold words to the new document using the magic wand & scissors, I lose some of the thin lines...any ideas why?
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Offline Erica McPhee

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #32 on: April 08, 2014, 01:16:49 PM »
Hi! I'm going to guess it is because your wand tool is not selecting all of the lines because the lines are too thin. I would suggest a couple solutions. First, make note of the lines which are being lost. Then, go back in your history to before you do the threshold adjustment. Use the burn tool to go over those lines to darken them just a bit. Then when you do your threshold, watch those lines carefully to ensure you are going high enough so they are being converted to black lines while not so high that you create noise elsewhere. There is a fine line (no pun intended) between not enough and too much.  :)

Also, be careful with how much burning you do as too much will also create noise once you do the threshold adjustment.

Then when you are using your magic wand, make sure to hold down the shift key and click on those areas that might not be selected with the first click. If it won't capture the line entirely, you can adjust the "tolerance" (increase) so it will capture more of the line.

Then once you have it all selected (you may have to zoom in to see if everything really is selected), then try to pull it into the new document.

Let me know if that helps or not.  :)
Warm Regards,
Erica
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Offline thistledesignstudio

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #33 on: April 08, 2014, 03:42:10 PM »
Gotcha!  I will try that the next time I can get to trying that!  LOL!  It was so funny going back & forth to your tutorial & doing it step by step...I guess it all comes together eventually!  :)
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Offline CharissaF

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #34 on: June 22, 2014, 11:39:01 PM »
Very informative. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge. It is invaluable

Offline tangledpen

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #35 on: July 15, 2014, 08:12:24 AM »
Thanks, Erica. This is greatly appreciated!

I had never used the color overlay - much better than the paint bucket!!! :)

Cheers,
Jana

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Offline DLThompson06

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #36 on: August 18, 2014, 11:19:36 AM »
Erica, thanks SO much for such a wonderful tutorial!  I have PS and use it quite often, but I seem to have gotten in a rut with the tools I use, and after having seen your video, I realize that I haven't been doing things very efficiently!  Your tutorial was spot on for me, and I really appreciated learning about the color overlay and minimum pixels.  Can't wait to get home and give it a try on some of my calligraphy!

Debbie

Offline Erica McPhee

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #37 on: August 18, 2014, 10:41:33 PM »
Sorry I didn't see your response Jana! Glad to be able to show you something new! I definitely like it better than the paintbucket as using the paintbucket eventually does degrade the line quality.  :)

Thanks Debbie! I'm so happy it is useful and new!  :D Let me know if you have any questions once you start working with it.  :)
Warm Regards,
Erica
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Offline rebeccao214

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #38 on: October 02, 2014, 03:23:46 PM »
Erica:  Just found this video.....very helpful for a raw beginner!!  Can't wait to try my first scan this weekend!!  Appreciate you OH so much!!

Offline Merissa

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #39 on: October 09, 2014, 02:53:10 AM »
What a very helpful video. As someone who doesn't own Illustrator I am so thrilled to learn tricks with calligraphy in Photoshop! I found your color change tip and using threshold to be very valuable bits of information. Thank you so much Erica! I am so glad to be here! :D

Offline Erica McPhee

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #40 on: October 09, 2014, 06:36:30 PM »
Thanks so much Merissa!

I'm considering doing some extensive tutorials for calligraphy and photoshop this winter so stay tuned.  :)
Warm Regards,
Erica
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Offline PaddyMac

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #41 on: November 06, 2014, 11:52:46 PM »
Adobe will sell you a license to use Photoshop CC 2014 and Lightroom for $10 a month, in their "photography" bundle. They have promised not to raise the price for a very long time. https://creative.adobe.com/plans/photography

Or you can buy Photoshop Elements for $99 outright. I don't think there is anything in the video above that you couldn't do with Elements, but get the Free Trial version and test it out. The big difference with Elements vs CC is the addition of Smart Objects, which are very worthwhile to learn and use but a bit advanced for a beginner. (For instance, in the video above, if the L layer was first converted to a smart object, you could resize it over and over with Free Transform without the constant pixel degradation - in other words, the third time you resized it would be just like the first time. This is useful for changing your mind when doing layouts. To convert a layer to being smart, right click on it and say "Convert to Smart Object".)

If you are intending to letterpress and need the pixels to remain B&W only, I'm pretty sure running Minimum is anti-aliasing the image (zoom in and you will see gray values along the edges).

It  should be noted that unless you are outputting to letterpress where the printer has asked for B&W pixels, you would be better off using Levels rather than Threshold. Adjust the middle control/gamma adjustment in Input Levels to the right and the mid-gray values will darken, but don't go all the way to the max. This will darken/thicken the lines and reduce the number of grays without removing the grays completely. Antialiasing is a good thing to increase smoothness if you have enough resolution (it might help to bump up your resolution - ask your printer as Photoshop's upscaling algorithms are pretty good these days).

gah.

Offline ElmaC

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #42 on: November 19, 2014, 04:27:39 AM »
Thank you very much for this tutorial! I am new here and am so happy to have stumbled across this forum. I have only ever used the paint bucket (which is very tedious if you want to change colours multiple times) and cannot wait to play with the color overlay!

Offline marilyns

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #43 on: November 20, 2014, 09:23:10 AM »
Erica, really would be thankful for some tutorials for calligraphy with Photoshop (Elements).

Offline marilyns

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Re: Preparing Calligraphy for Printing
« Reply #44 on: November 20, 2014, 09:31:37 AM »
Erica, can't wait to have your tutorials for using Photoshop.  In the meantime, seems I read somewhere you have a video about Photoshop.  Where could I find that?